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Show Utah Foundation Report Explains Importance Of Changes in State's Unemployment Tax Utah's new unemployment compensation act, passed by the recent session of the 1955 Legislature, Legis-lature, attempts "to iron out some of the inequities" found in the present law, according to a report re-port released this week by Utah Foundation, the private, non-profit, tax research organization. The Foundation's report analyzes ana-lyzes the unemployement compensation com-pensation changes made by the 1955 Legislature and outlines the principal reasons behind these changes. This nevv legislation followed a seven-month study of the problem by a joint labor-management labor-management legislative committee. com-mittee. Since both groups were accorded equal voting representation represent-ation on the committee and both agreed to the changes, the new Employment Security Act is, in effect, an agreement between labor la-bor and management representatives represent-atives on matters of unemployment unemploy-ment compensation. Increased Benefits 1 One of the principal changes found in the new law is that of increasing the maximium benefits bene-fits payable and changing the formula for determinging benefits. bene-fits. Utah Foundation's report states that the new legislation will result in increasing the proportion pro-portion of earnings compensated for the higher wage workers while reducing the proportion for the lower-wage workers. Foundation Found-ation analysts point out that in some instances lower wage work ers under the old law can obtain ob-tain a3 much or more by drawing draw-ing unemployment benefits as they can by actually working, particularly when taxes and work expenses are considered." "On the other hand," the report continues, "employees earning more than $55 a week are eligible elig-ible for benefits the.c are less than 50 of their gross wage" under the old law. The changes provided by the 1955 legislation are designed to iron out these Inequities. Loopholes Closed Utah's new Employment Security Sec-urity legislation also restricts special benefits for partially unemployed un-employed individuals and benefits bene-fits for women during pregnancy. Both of these changes were made "to close, at least partially, what has been obvious loopholes in the law." the Foundation states. Besiles the changes made in benefits to unemployed workmen, the new law will also make significant sig-nificant revisions in the experience exper-ience rating plan and the unemployment un-employment compensation tax rates paid by most Utah employ-ers. employ-ers. According to the Foundation report, these changes, in general, will result in increased tax rates for seasonal-type industries and decreased rates for stable year-round year-round businesses. The new experience exper-ience rating formula represents an attempt by the labor-manage ment committee to place a greater great-er portion of the unemployment cost witn those employing units that are primarily responsible for the unemployment. |